Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST), the world's third largest hard disk drive (HDD) producer, is hiring another 1,000 workers to bring its total to 10,000, on confidence that its shipment volumes this year will exceed those of 2008.

Thailand is the largest HDD production base for Hitachi with export value of $2.6 billion a year and total employment of 9,500, said Nakorn Tangsujaritpun, deputy managing director at Hitachi GST (Thailand).

New manufacturing staff plus 40 engineers will allow the company to handle rising orders, which grew by 20% in the second quarter from the first three months, he said.

"We have been receiving increasing orders since April. Nowadays, our factory in Prachin Buri is running at nearly 100% of capacity with overtime shifts," said Mr Nakorn.

"At the beginning of this year, we thought that we would produce fewer drives than last year because of the global demand contraction. But from today's outlook, we will definitely have some growth of volume from Thailand this year."

Mr Nakorn said HGST had reported double-digit annual growth in output every year since it was established in Thailand 15 years ago. The company invests roughly one billion baht annually to increase capacity and upgrade manufacturing efficiency.

"Demand for affordable personal computers is still growing as people do more internet networking. I think that's why the demand for hard drives has come back quickly," he said.

HGST, which ranks behind the US companies Seagate Technology and Western Digital (WD) in the world market, also operates HDD facilities in China and Singapore but on a smaller scale than the Thai unit. Headquartered in San Jose', California, the company manufactures components in China, the Philippines, Malaysia and the US.

The Thai unit of WD has also recruited 5,000 manufacturing staff to add to its existing 31,000 employees, while Seagate is adjusting its 12,000-strong local workforce in line with production volume and demand.

According to Mr Nakorn, Thai-made Hitachi HDDs are shipped to 73 markets globally. Asia, mainly China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, is the largest export destination to PC vendors, together with the European market.

While other HDD makers have remained sceptical about the industry's prospects, Mr Nakorn said HGST has a more optimistic view.

"When we first realised increasing orders in the past few months, we thought it might be the result of inventory rebuilding after customers' stocks dried up," he said.

"But the orders we have received to date prompt us to believe that the global HDD industry has really recovered and at HGST, we are now looking forward to another year of growth in 2010."